In this image made from video, a group of people believed to be hostages kneel in the sand with their hands in the air at an unknown location in Algeria. An Algerian security official says de-mining squads searching for explosives found "numerous" bodies Sunday, Jan. 20, 2012 at a gas refinery where Islamic militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage. (Ennahar TV/AP)

In this image made from video, a group of people believed to be hostages kneel in the sand with their hands in the air at an unknown location in Algeria. An Algerian security official says de-mining squads searching for explosives found "numerous" bodies Sunday, Jan. 20, 2012 at a gas refinery where Islamic militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage.(Ennahar TV/AP)

While Canadian officials are trying to confirm whether two of their own
citizens took part in the bloody hostage-taking at the Algerian gas plant, more
details of the transnational nature of the terrorist operation are emerging,
alleging links with militants operating in Libya.

Appearing Wednesday before a Senate hearing, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said that the terrorist arsenal used in the attack – assault rifles,
rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank mines – came from neighbouring
Libya.

“There is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya. There
is no doubt that the Malian remnants of AQIM have weapons from Libya,” she said,
referring to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the regional affiliate of the
al-Qaeda network.

The Algerian daily El Watan reported that 29 of the 32 kidnappers were
recruited in Libya while Agence France-Presse quoted “a source
very close to extremist groups” in Libya stating that they had provided
logistical support to the terrorist raid last week on the In Amenas gas complex.

The New York Times quoted an Algerian official saying that three
of the militants captured alive told their interrogators that Egyptian members
of their team had also been involved in last September’s attack in Benghazi
against the American diplomatic mission in Libya.

The hostage takers had themselves revealed their diverse origin
last Friday when a spokesman told the Mauritanian news agency Agence Nouakchott d’Information that their ranks
included not just members from Algeria, Mali, Niger or Mauritania but also
people from Egypt and Canada.

“Unlike what was happening in other jihadist fronts, jihadism in Algeria had recruited locally, but
now we are witnessing not an internationalization, but a transnationalization of this
extreme violence,” said Salma Belaala, a scholar of North African Islamic
movements at the University of Warwick.

She said Algerian authorities have long worried that toppling
Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya would create instability
in the region.

“So today we’re now in a gaping security vacuum on the Libyan
side.”

During a news conference Monday, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said the guerrillas included 11 Tunisians,
Egyptians and two Canadians. Officials in Ottawa have since tried to get more
information on those claims and have summoned the Algerian ambassador to demand
an official explanation of the claims.

“We have no substantial information at the present time on these particular
individuals, but obviously we will continue to work with the government of
Algeria to find out more about this particular matter,” Prime Minister Stephen
Harper told reporters during a public event Wednesday in Cambridge, Ont.

Whether there indeed were Canadian jihadis in Algeria, it is significant that the terrorists wanted it to be
known that their ranks included men from beyond the Sahel region, one security
expert said.

The terrorists’ mix of nationalities signals global ambitions and a desire to
align themselves with al-Qaeda’s
original core, said Jean-Paul Rouiller, a
former Swiss counterterrorism analyst who is now operational
manager of the Geneva Centre for Training and Analysis of Terrorism.

“It’s a very important change ... You rarely had participation of foreigners
from Tunisia, Libya and even less so for Canada or Egypt. The message is that
the fire that you saw fading in Afghanistan is being relit in Africa,” Mr. Rouiller said, alluding to the Arabic expression
for “Mother al-Qaeda,” the original group formed in Afghanistan in the
1990s.

Until then, the Jihadi
movement in the desert regions between Algeria, Niger and Mali, had used the
name Salafist Group for Preaching or
Combat (known by the French initials GSPC) until 2007, when it renamed itself
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The mastermind of the bloody attack on Algeria’s In Amenas natural-gas complex, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, is a former Algerian-born AQIM
commander who started a splinter group last month, the Al-Mulathamin Brigade, and pledged
allegiance directly to al-Qaeda.

In a video message released last Thursday, midway through the
hostage taking, Mr. Belmokhtar
said he had sent fighters from both foreign and local countries to In Amenas, under the name “the Signatories of
Blood.”

Mr. Belmokhtar has financed his operations through smuggling and kidnappings
and is well known to
Canadian law enforcement after he captured two Canadian diplomats, Robert Fowler
and Louis Guay, and held them for four months.

At one point, Mr. Belmokhtar was suspected of co-operating with some factions of the
Algerian government, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by
Wikileaks.

In a 2009 cable, U.S.
diplomats in Mali described a conversation with a Tuareg leader, Abderahmane ag Ghalla.

“Ag Ghalla said he frequently queried his Algerian colleagues on
Algeria’s position toward Mokhtar Belmokhtar, reportedly asking on several occasions: ‘Isn’t he
working for you?’ ” the cable said.

“Ag Ghalla professed to be as confused as everyone else regarding
the Algerian government’s reticence to go after Belmokhtar’s camps in northern Mali,” the cable continued. “He said he
could only conclude that Belmokhtar was receiving support from certain
quarters of the Algerian government, and then cited Belmokhtar’s legendary reputation for last-minute escapes and uncanny
knack for never being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”